An Offer You Can't Refuse
by xcgirl08
Summary: Well, it certainly wasn't the most romantic of proposals. But it was one they would both remember for the rest of their lives. Zutara, of course.


**For all the wonderful people who requested Zutara action, plain ol' Zutara, and Zutara bickering! I myself wanted to chronicle the rest of Zuko's proposal, so here it is. **

**This is picking up, of course, after that little shout by Zuko in the South Pole (as mentioned in "Citadel" and "Welcome to the Family." **

**LOL. I own nothing!**

**An Offer You Can't Refuse**

The rope fell slack from Katara's hands, and Zuko's wide gold eyes traced its path into the snow. It landed in an odd figure eight shape at her feet, which were rooted in place.

Then, he slowly raised his line of vision once again.

Up the boots, the blue dress, the fur and silver belt about her hips, over the white trim of her coat, the glint of the pendant at her neck, and finally into the astonished waterbender's face. At almost nineteen, her face had thinned out in shape to become more like her mother's. Her lips were fuller, her brow more quirked, and the eyes not quite as large.

But still, she was the same Katara as always.

Somewhere in the distance, a baby started crying and an old woman coughed hoarsely.

Zuko folded his hands behind his back and waited.

Katara, meanwhile looked like a child struggling with her first words, breaths making small puffs in the frozen air as her mind was trying to unstick.

After a full minute, her tongue became semi-functional.

"W…w…**what** did you just ask me?"

He kept his face as placid as possible. This had not gone as he had expected it to, certainly. Zuko had thought he possessed at least more courage than this! To work up to asking a woman such a thing and then just…..cracking.

The echoes of his shouted order did not carry very far, but it caught a few stares, and the little girls working nearby dropped everything they were doing to sneak over and watch the show.

One of them giggled: what kind of a man just shouts '_Marry me_' all of a sudden? Especially to Master Katara! How absurd. Perhaps it was a custom in the Fire Nation or something. They all 'shushed' each other in order to hear what the Fire Lord said next.

"I don't think I need to repeat it," he replied sharply, angry and embarrassed with himself. Zuko felt his face turning red. _Dark_ red.

He then trained his gaze away from her intense eyes, anywhere else, and down onto the coat she had forced him into. He looked very bad in blue, Zuko decided.

"Oh, I think you _do_ need to repeat it," Katara pressed on, stepping forward.

Her boot crunched in the snow, and she had decided to settle with a slack jawed expression of some kind.

The Fire Lord simply looked at her in return, and Katara's mind was thrown into utter chaos.

He had just asked her to marry him.

Here! Of all places! She had always hoped that her true love would propose to her somewhere _romantic_: under the moonlight, at a banquet, after a festival, high above the clouds on a mountaintop….

No.

Although her true love was present, it was daybreak. There was a hemorrhage of fresh dawn coloring the eastern sky, and Zuko had offered to help her bring in the morning catch. In fact, the still- flopping fish lay at her feet, and they both smelled like death and salt.

Very **unromantic.**

And look at him! He had not dropped to one knee, he had no engagement present to give her; he was just standing there with no readable expression on his face to speak of.

What had her life become?

_Marry_ him!

It was as though he had ordered her to... Although any other woman would have told her it was a long time coming.

They had known each other for five years, and been 'lovers' ( for lack of a less lustful word) for a good two or so. It had not been two years full of wild passion and fireworks, certainly. There had been embraces for comfort, a few quick stolen kisses that Katara usually initiated (Zuko, as she had known, was not one familiar with physical expressions of love) and one walk under the starlight.

(On a scouting mission, come to think of it. So that didn't count.)

But there had also been many long, wonderful conversations, many smiles and sounds of laughter, good battles where they had learned to play off of each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to overcome their opponents.

And that was exactly what Katara had wanted. That had made her happier than anything else, to simply have him with her and enjoy his company. She didn't need to be the center of his attention: she knew that he thought of her and cared for her, and that knowledge was more than enough. Katara had been happy…but some part of her warned that there was no way it would last.

But now…what was this?

And Katara looked up at the simple bronze crown that he wore in place of the magnificent golden one. He had come to visit the South Pole, to see how the rebuilding was going, and thus had not brought very formal attire.

She had giggled when she pulled the parka over his head, his hair sticking up oddly from being yanked through.

But despite what he was wearing….

He was a Fire Lord.

A Fire Lord, a noble leader.

The wife of a Lord is a Lady, she knew.

And that was part of the problem.

He couldn't marry a Water Tribe girl of her birth. She knew _nothing_ of Fire Nation politics on such a scale, nothing of palace life, and nothing of being a leader of men. She was fairly certain that the Fire Nation people would not like it one bit, and would make his reign that much more difficult. Considering that large portions of the Fire Nation disliked him already, that would not bode well.

They were different.

There were things that would always be a mystery about the other; it was another reason why she loved him so much.

But…but….

He deserved someone who could keep up with the political hurricanes, match his quiet demeanor rather than poke at it with jokes and playful hugs, who understood him perfectly, could read him like a book rather than having to ask him, make him talk about his feelings. She had always seen their relationship as tragically temporary

(_But you love him with everything in you, don't you? You knew you would have to let him go someday, thought that he would __**want**__ to let go, now that he's grown up into the finest man you've ever met, and you knew that you would go along with it and cry inside. You_ _thought you were setting yourself up for misery, but you loved him, you loved him anyway…despite the fact that….)_

And Katara realized that Zuko should marry someone who had never envisioned his face and felt hatred.

MARRY him!

She couldn't.

Because……

(_Well?_)

She loved him too much. And how **dare** he upset the fate that she had finally accepted, finally thought she was strong enough to handle?

Katara opened her mouth, and the impatience that was growing on Zuko's face was cut short.

"I…I…."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I…."

She took a breath. He held his.

"**NO**"

Any happy expression on the Fire Lord's countenance shriveled and died as the word hit him, her voice producing its own echoes as it bounced away over the ice fields and repeated in his ears.

"Excuse me?"

"N-no! I said _NO_, I will _NOT_ marry you! I mean, I mean, how…how c-could you ask me that? What are you thinking?! It would never work…and….and…"

She floundered for words.

Something to say, anything at all.

The little girls had covered their mouths in shock. Well, that was unexpected and awkward… The man looked like he had been slapped with a fish!

But Master Katara seemed not to notice. Her flustered rant continued as what color their was in Zuko's face vanished as though being sieved.

"You can't marry me! You shouldn't want to anyway…..I'm from the Water Tribe! You yourself called me a peasant!!"

Fire Lord Zuko found his tongue, as Katara had needed to a few minutes prior.

"I haven't called you a peasant in five years! How can you dredge that up now?!"

She placed her brown hands onto her temples.

"Look, Zuko: I'm just trying to keep you from making a big mistake, alright?!"

His eyes widened, and the little girls nearby scuttled to hide behind a hut. They sensed trouble….A few sparks flew about in the morning air, and the snow began to swirl as though alive about Katara's feet.

"Are you saying you don't love me? Is that the problem here!?" he spoke as though deeply offended. Zuko resisted the urge to place a hand over his heart and see if it was bleeding from her jab.

"Are you DEAF?" she shouted back in equal volume, taking a step forward. He took one forward as well, and the two warriors were toe to toe, regarding each other with flinty expressions as their eyes locked.

"Of COURSE I _love_ you, you idiot! I've said it a million times before, even if _you've_ almost never told me the same thing!! I'd die for you in a heartbeat! And THAT'S why I'm saying I _can't marry you_!"

(_I_ _don't think you love me as much as I love you_.)

"That makes no sense and you know it!" He stated firmly, holding back the burst of flame that wanted to come flying out his fist.

"It makes perfect sense. I can't, can't, _can't_ marry you, it's for the good of everybody and you'll be so much happier with some beautiful lady of the Fire court and I'm too loud and I'm too overbearing and I'm too different and I…I…" she took a breath , and then another one.

"And once, I hated you."

The words froze along with her next breath, floating out into the dawn and pattering down, too heavy to carry on, onto the snow.

Both were silent.

The baby in the distance had ceased its crying, the fish their flopping.

In fact, it was as though the whole world was hanging on edge for a moment and waiting with baited breath.

Zuko noticed the pause, and opened his mouth to set it spinning again.

"In case you didn't know, waterbender, there was a time when I hated you as well."

She withdrew, nodding and clearly at the end of her fuse.

"Well then! Why are we even having this discussion?! Let's just move on with our lives! Close the chapter, story's over! Swell!" She gesticulated wildly as she spoke, jaw set. He raised his voice once again, remembering that his father's family was famous for their tempers.

"Now Katara, don't you dare…."

She stepped back again, and before he knew it, the waterbending master had gone into a fighting stance as though prompted by second nature.

"Don't tell me what to do, _firebender_."

He positioned himself as well, feet making tracks in the snow and hands raised before him.

Instead of elements, an exchange of words began.

"Obstinate woman!"

"Arrogant brat!"

"Mother hen!"

"Hotheaded, self-loathing whiner!"

"Emotional child!"

"Stubborn pig!"

"Peasant!"

"**Ponytail boy**! Spirits, that thing was _ridiculous_…."

He was struck dumb for a split second, and threw out the first thing that came to mind.

"Well! Better than the **HAIR LOOPIES**."

The little girls over by the hut were having hard time breathing; they were trying so much to conceal their laughter in the sleeves of their heavy parkas.

At about the same time one of them began to cough furiously, Katara raised an eyebrow. The smoldering anger faltered between them, and before Zuko knew it a chuckle had escaped him.

They were fighting like children, for gods' sakes.

If only they could hear themselves!

_Hair loopies_?

He also realized that Katara had pinched her mouth closed to hold in her mirth. _Ponytail boy? Did I really say that?_

_Time to grow up a little bit, Katara._

"Alright, Zuko," she held up her hands disarmingly. Each word was spoken with painstaking patience and a slight edge.

"It seems we have a lot to discuss."

Then the smooth, healer's hands slid back down to her sides, and she puffed a breath out before she proposed her idea.

"My mom used to do something with Sokka and me when we were little: back when we had stupid fights like this. She would sit us down, and we would each tell the other what had made us angry….. However, we also had to say something that we loved about each other."

A ray of sunny laughter escaped her. "It was so mushy and embarrassing that we would avoid fights just to avoid _it_!"

"Your mother was a clever woman, then," Zuko stated, pulling out of the stance he remembered he was in. This was what they had been reduced to: a childish game. Where was this humiliation going to end?

The Water Tribe ambassador looked at him expectantly.

"So……."

"So?"

A long pause ensued until Katara broke into it.

"I guess I'll go first, then." She frowned; irritated that he had not caught on.

He only blinked those molten gold eyes of his at her, and Katara held up the fingers of one hand to aid her in her 'listing.'

"Bad point: you are extremely quick to anger and have a temper that would scare the scales off an elephant koi."

Zuko opened his mouth to loudly defend himself, say that _her _temper was not much better, but bit his tongue and avoided making himself a hypocrite.

She noticed and continued, nodding in approval.

"Good point; you're passionate about things. You do nothing in halves, Zuko. If you care for something, if you want something, if you must achieve something, you give it your whole heart and nothing less. No matter how big or small."

An unreadable expression passed over his face and he nodded to thank her, but Katara's hand halted him as she pointed.

"You. Your turn."

Put on the spot, Zuko shifted his weight and examined the footprints they had made in the snow, before going on with her little 'exercise.'

He thought and answered.

"You think you're the only one in the whole world who knows anything or can take care of anyone properly."

Katara looked indignant for a second, but ran the thought through her head and held back the scolding she had been ready with. _Just hear him out_, she told herself. _Deep breaths_.

"But you also never give up on people, no matter how far gone they may be. You have faith in the good of others. You are always willing to forgive."

Silence.

The little Water Tribe girls had ceased their laughter completely, and were now watching closely, trying not to breathe lest the moment shatter like a thin pane of ice.

The sun edged higher in the sky, and the long shadows shrunk some.

It was clear: a powerful chord had been struck between the two warrior companions.

And after that, the words unstuck from their tongues. They relaxed to more comfortable, casual positions: they were no longer on the defensive towards each other.

Katara placed her hands upon her hips while Zuko crossed his arms, and they continued.

"Zuko, you are as stubborn as any earthbender I have ever met."

The young Fire Lord raised his eyebrow. Coming from a woman who knew Toph Bei Fong, that was a _serious_ accusation.

"…. But with all that life has given you, you've never folded. You have the strongest spirit of anyone I've ever met."

She smiled. Zuko kept his eyebrow raised. Coming from _her_, that was quite a high compliment.

He felt the need to reciprocate.

"And you, little waterbender, have far too much confidence in your abilities. You'll wade into a score of enemies without so much as a second thought, and one day it will get you killed."

A beat.

"However, as much as I hate it when you are in danger, you bend with more emotion and focus than I've ever seen. You bring the element to life and it's quite something to watch."

"Thank you, Hothead," she smiled lopsidedly. Coming from someone who had so much pride in his own bending abilities, that was really something.

Her arms shifted into the crossed position, matching his pose. "As for you, boy, you're withdrawn. You have so many walls, it's as though you don't want anyone to be close to you…..and yet you've trusted me enough to let me get _this_ close, at least."

(_He loves you enough to let you come close, to put you within striking range of his heart. He gives you the ability to hurt him because he trusts you not to, Katara. Would refusing him count as a strike?)_

He kept the conversation flowing, and Zuko thought of one instantly.

"You wear your emotions on your sleeve. You can keep nothing to yourself at all, ever. It's annoying sometimes…..And it's positively infectious. When _you're_ happy, no matter how infuriated I am with the fools I deal with, I'll always find myself laughing: No one else can do that for me."

Katara walked towards him now, rattling them off.

Except that part of the discussion fell away, and she was grinning ear to ear.

"You know what else I like about you?" she asked, reaching over and punching him in the arm playfully.

"Do tell me, waterbender," he countered, flipping a strand of misplaced hair away from her face.

"You shrug your shoulders when you're nervous. You drink Iroh's tea even though you can't stand it, and you try so hard to make it for him in return. Even though yours tastes terrible."

"It does not."

She quirked a brow and he sighed in resignation. Another inch between them disappeared as they moved closer.

"Katara, you bite your lip when you're thinking…just like you're doing right now…."

She immediately stopped, and he shook his head.

"….you snore like a platypus bear, too. Loudest I ever heard a girl snore was the time we were at that inn, and you agreed to take the floor because I had gotten injured. I was up most of the night with the noise……Has anyone ever told you that?"

His gaze softened.

"You cry when you cannot heal something, when something dies, even if it is only an old turtleduck in the royal garden. You cry for the whole world sometimes, it seems."

She had made a fool of herself doing that, Katara thought. Another inch, gone, and she grasped the end of his sleeve.

"You care, too, Zuko, even if you don't show it."

"You are always there," he stated, remembering all the times that she had been.

"You are incredibly stoical… but when you smile, it's priceless." The first time he had smiled, just for her, she had been walking on the clouds for the rest of the day.

(_He loves you enough to smile for you, Katara, and he makes you smile as well…)_

Zuko thought of something else about her, in the incredible spectrum of wonders, miracles and imperfections that she was.

"You are incredibly sappy: but at moments like this, I really couldn't care less."

"Ah, a very good point."

Now her arms were draped around his shoulders, and his were in their respective positions, at her waist and fiddling with her braid.

The sun and moon regarded each other once more to mull over what had been said.

All those bad points were true.

And there was a time, years ago, when to be this close would have meant that one or both of them were dead. They had hated each other as impersonal enemies, and they knew they were both as flawed as any normal human being is.

They did not only see the good parts about each other: they recognized each other's flaws as well (had them pegged, in fact) and through that recognition, Zuko and Katara 'improved' each other.

It wasn't "_You love me for who I am_."

It was, "_You love me enough to try and make me a better person, even if you know that I'll never be perfect, because… how boring would **that** be?_"

They had both made each other better, of course. Or, something along those lines.

The love they were looking at now had somehow been stronger than all of their differences, animosities, angers, and flaws, and it had taken a dumb argument to truly realize that. The love had healed, the love had forgiven, and it held them where they were presently.

It had overcome the fight they had just been having like it had everything else.

Katara breathed in, Zuko breathed out.

(This was a very poor choice of time to be hit with these massive realizations, but Katara figured it was far better now than when it was too late.)

She bit her lip.

Slowly, her hand rose up to touch his scar, and the memories came to her like the tide, of how much time had passed since the last time she had done so. And even if the scar was still there, what it represented had long been washed away by both her, and the other members of their little "family." All the frustration, self-loathing, loss, wiped clean. _And he had…._

Katara edged back from the waves of her recollections, wanting to live only in this moment.

(_You love him, girl. And he loves you. He may not dote on you, worship the ground you walk on, but you never wanted that. You are equals, and when you talk, he listens. Eternal dance, yin and yang, water and fire. Your path is set before your feet now. No point bein_g _afraid, you'll face it together_….)

She shut off her inner ear, wanting only the silence of the dawn.

_Yes, we will._

Zuko proceeded to rest his head in the cradle of her hand, sighing as though happily exhausted, and Katara was set to wondering.

They had been to the North Pole numerous times since the war's end, so why hadn't he asked her to…

She brushed the scar gently (_the only person in the world given the right to do so_, she considered) and was suddenly overcome by practicality.

"I could have healed you, you know. All you had to do was ask."

A smile spread over Zuko's face, a knowing one that grew on Katara's like a mirror. _His_ emotions grew on _her_ pretty quickly as well, come to think of it.

The firebender replied casually, with a resigned shrug.

"That's just it, though: you already have. And I never _had _to ask."

Katara swallowed, her spirit too full and tender for words at the moment.

Another long pause was filled only with staring.

And she needed to speak before she lost it, before her heart spilled over completely into tears._Why do we cry when we are happy?_ She wondered.

"That was corny, Zuko."

He laughed. _That was Katara for you_.

"I know. But I meant it, you realize."

"You never lie to me, do you?"

"Never," he assured.

She bit her lip, as he knew that she would.

"So… you're sure this is what you want, then, _Fire Lord_ Zuko?"

"Never been so sure of anything in my life."

From a man whose convictions were as strong as his, that also meant something.

She rolled her eyes with a smile, and pulled him even closer.

"Well then," she said, brushing off his coat, "I suppose it's a yes. My heart in exchange for yours, 'til death do us part, for better or worse and the whole bit?"

"Best proposition I've ever heard."

They stepped back as proper rulers do and shook hands on their deal, both realizing that if they cried like sentimental, happy fools, the tears would positively freeze to their faces in this air.

Then, suddenly….

A young voice set up an indignant shout.

"Oh, COME ON!! For spirit's sake, we've been sittin' here for, like, FOREVER!"

Both astonished lovers looked over, to see a dark little face poking up above the stark white snow.

A small, gloved hand pointed forward at Zuko.

"Mister Fire Lord, if you love Master Katara you had better kiss her good **right now**. We've been waiting, and you twos ain't gonna get away with just _shakin' hands_."

"A kiss seals the deal! It's the only way!" the friend shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

A chorus set up, "**Kiss her! Kiss her!**"

The Fire Lord's mouth was hanging open, but then he cleared off the shock to ask the girl pointedly: "Oh, is that so? What strange customs you Water Tribe folk have. Is that _really_ the only way?"

"You betcha, Zuko," Katara nodded, giving the little girls a thumbs-up when her future husband's back was turned.

"Well then…" he huffed matter-of-factly, pivoting around and taking his whole world into his arms. "I guess we had better hurry up before we freeze. If _that_ happens, there'll be no wedding at all, and…."

A brown hand was placed firmly over his mouth.

"Stop talking. You're ruining the moment."

He nodded, pulled her in and kissed her.

The little girls turned away, blushing furiously but grinning madly at the same time. _Success! _And they scurried back to their chores and duties, babbling excitedly about what sort of babies the two would have, what Master Katara's wedding dress would look like and such.

The two benders, of course, did not notice, as the kiss lasted far longer, dove far deeper into their hearts, than either had intended. She found herself holding onto Zuko tighter, as his hand grabbed the end of her braid and loosed it, hair falling around her shoudlers as he did.

His scent was the sweet one, reminiscent of burning wood: hers was the crisp scent of fallen snow.

Both had long memorized _that_ fact about each other.

Katara dipped slightly, stepping back blindly….and slipped on a forgotten fish. (They would laugh about that later).

Both of them went tumbling into the crisp white snow with a storm of flakes.

Neither paid any mind to that, either.

And across the ice field, another stood to go, brushing snow off his parka with a sigh.

Time to head back for breakfast; see what Suki was cooking up!

_Best leave those two to their own anyway_, he thought, slipping his boomerang back into its case.

Of all things.

A firebender and a waterbender, how about that.

And he hadn't killed Hothead! How about _that_! Katara owed him big time for sure. Maybe a big batch of sea prunes, that would help a lot.

The warrior thought aloud as he walked.

"Katara had better have me lots of little nieces and nephews, at least, to make up for all the suffering I go through for her. Maybe one of them will be good with a boomerang: I'll bet that gold crown makes for great target practice, heheheh….."

Sokka's laughter carried away into the sky, where the morning sun hung over the ocean with the moon fading away. The moon was still there, though, never really _gone._

Thus the balanced cycle continued

Because the moon needs the sun, to shine her brightest.

And the sun needs the moon, to let him know that he is not alone in the vast heavens.

And together, in their harmony, they light the world.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

**A/N: Thanks for reading. **


End file.
